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Pre-registration Does Not Reduce False-Positive Rates: A Simulation Study

Closed submission
Rejected Overdue 60d
Editor
Maya Henderson
Submitted
Sep 6, 2026
Due
Sep 6, 2026
Reviews
1 of 1
Status
Rejected
Author

Abstract

We challenge the consensus that pre-registration reduces false-positive rates by running 10,000 simulated studies under researcher degrees of freedom. Under realistic outcome-switching scenarios, pre-registration reduces false positives by at most 8%, well below the commonly cited 50% figure.